Saw'st thou ever Siquis patcht on Pauls Church door <br />To seek some vacant vicarage before? <br />Who wants a churchman that can service say, <br />Read fast and fair his monthly homily? <br />And wed and bury and make Christen-souls? <br />Come to the left-side alley of St. Paules. <br />Thou servile fool, why could'st thou not repair <br />To buy a benefice at Steeple-Fair? <br />There moughtest thou, for but a slendid price, <br />Advowson thee with some fat benefice: <br />Or if thee list not wait for dead mens shoon, <br />Nor pray each morn the incumbents days were doone: <br />A thousand patrons thither ready bring, <br />Their new-fall'n churches, to the chaffering; <br />Stake three years stipend: no man asketh more. <br />Go, take possession of the Church porch door, <br />And ring thy bells; luck stroken in thy fist <br />The parsonage is thine, or ere thou wist. <br />Saint Fool's of Gotam mought thy parish be <br />For this thy base and servile Simony.<br /><br />Joseph Hall<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/on-simony/
